Labeling
the Serbs as Nazis The Role of Ruder
Finn, a US-Public Relation Firm

The following is
an extract of an interview conducted by Mr. Jacques Merlino (Deputy Director
of the network TV2, Paris, France) with James Harff (Director of Ruder
Finns's Global Public affairs section), which took place in October 1993.

HARFF: For eighteen
months we have been working for the Republic of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina,
as well as for the opposition in Kosovo. Throughout this period, we had
many successes, giving us a formidable international image. We intend to
take advantage of this and develop commercial agreements with these countries.
Speed is vital, because items favourable to us must be settled in public
opinion. The first statement counts. The retractions have no effect.
MERLINO: What are your methods of operation?

HARFF: The essential
tools in our work are a card file, a computer and a fax. The card file
contains a few hundred names of journalists, politicians, academics, and
representatives of humanitarian organizations. The computer goes through
the card files according to correlated subjects, coming up with a very
effective targets. The computer is tied into a fax. In this way we can
disseminate information in a few minutes to those we thinkill react (positively).
Our job is to assure that the arguments for our side will be the first
to be expressed.

MERLINO: How often
do you intervene?HARFF: Quantity is not important. You have to intervene
at the right time with the right person...

MERLINO: What achievement
were you most proud of?

HARFF: To have managed
to move the Jewish opinion to our side. This was extemely delicate, as
the dossier involved a major danger. President Tudjman was too imprudent
in his book, "Wastelands: Historical Truth." A reading of his text could
find him guilty of anti-semitism. In Bosnia, the situation was no better:
President Izetbegovic, in his book, The Islamic Declaration," strongly
supported the creation of a fundamentalist Islamic state [in Bosnia]. Morover,
the Croatian and Bosnian past was marked by a real and cruel anti-semitism.
Tens of thousands of Jews perished in Croatian camps. So there was every
reason for intellectuals and Jewish organizations to be hostile towards
the Croats and Bosnians. Our challenge was to reverse this attitude. And
we succeeded masterfully. At beginning of August 1992, the New York Newsday
came but with he affair of (Serb) concentration camps. We jumped at the
opportunity immediately. We outwitted three big Jewish organizations -
B'Nai Brith Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Committee, and the American
Jewish Congress. We suggested to them to publish an advertisement in the
New York Times and to organize demonstrations outside the U.N. This was
a tremendous coup. When the Jewish organizations entered the game on the
side of the (muslim) Bosnians, we could promptly equate the Serbs with
the Nazis in the public mind. The dossier was a complex one. Nobody understood
what was going on in (former) Yugoslavia. The great majority of Americans
were probably asking themselves in which African country Bosnia was situated.
But, by a single move, were were able to present a simple story of good
guys and bad guys which would hereafter play itself. We won by targeting
Jewish audience, the right target. Almost immediately there was a clear
change of language in the press, with the use of words with high emotional
content, such as "ethnic cleansing," "concentration camps," etc. which
evoked inmates of Nazi Germany and the gas chambers of Auschwitz. The emotional
change was so powerful that nobody could go against it...

MERLINO: But when
you did all this, between 2 and 5 of August 1992. you had no proof that
what you said was true. You only had the two articles in Newsday.HARFF:
Our work is not to verify information. We are not equipped for that. Our
work is to accelerate the circulation of information favourable to us,
to aim them at carefully chosen targets. We did not claim that there were
death camps in Bosnia, we just made it know that Newsday claimed it.

MERLINO: Are you
aware that you took on a grave responsibility?

HARFF: We are professionals.
We had a job to do and we did it. We are not paid to moralize. And when
the time comes to start a debate on all of this, we have a clear conscience.
For, if you wish to prove that

Serbs are in fact
poor victims, go ahead, but you will be quite alone."

[From Les Verites
Ne Sont Pas Toutes Bonnes A Dire (The Truth from Yugoslavia is not being
Reported Honestly), by Jaqcues Merlino, published by Albin Michel Paris,
1993.]